


Dionysiac

by sospes



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 18:35:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13487328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes
Summary: It's nearly Christmas, and a body is found by the side of the Isis, throat laid open and body mutilated. A crumbling house, a play by Euripides, and the worsening weather all conspire to make this a case that Morse won't soon forget.





	Dionysiac

The pulsing allegro of the Dies Irae from Mozart’s _Requiem_ is rudely interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. 

Morse quickly tugs his tie into place, takes the needle out of its groove, and lifts the receiver. “Morse,” he says tersely, forehead furrowed as he listens to the tinny voice on the other end of the line. “Alright. How long?” He listens a moment longer. “Has Inspector Thursday been notified?” Pause. “Okay, I’ll pick him up. Goodbye.” He puts the receiver back into place, takes his coat off the hook, and leaves. 

Mozart sits on the turntable, unspun.

 

Thursday opens the front door with sandwiches in one hand and his hat in the other. “Strange called,” he says without preamble, closing the door on the sounds of Mrs Thursday’s morning routine. “Said we’ve got a body.” 

Morse nods, hands tucked in his pockets. “That’s right, sir. Down on the towpath by Donnington Bridge.” 

Thursday grunts and settles his hat on his head. “Better be on our way, then.” 

They get into the car, and fortunately the engine’s been running long enough that the interior of the little black vehicle is passably warm. Thursday rubs his hands together vigorously as Morse drives them down the street. “Any more information from the station?” he asks. 

“Nothing they told me.” 

Thursday hums to himself, nodding. “It’s a cold one today, isn’t it?” he asks, although Morse knows from past experience that the question is rhetorical more than anything else. “If it keeps like this, we might be looking at a white Christmas.” He glances over at Morse as the car turns down the Abindgon road. “You got plans for Christmas, Morse?”

Morse shrugs, a one-shouldered affair that he probably shouldn’t attempt while driving. “Not really,” he says, studying the road ahead, waiting for the turn to take them down to Donnington Bridge and the waiting corpse. 

He can feel Thursday watching him keenly. “Well, if you’re not busy, you should come round to ours for Christmas dinner.” 

Morse’s hands tighten on the wheel. He takes the turn down to Weirs Lane rather too quickly. “I couldn’t possibly, sir,” he says. “I wouldn’t wan to intrude.” 

“Nonsense,” Thursday says gruffly. “No intrusion at all. Joan’s going to come over from Leamington, but Sam was always the one who ate up all of Mrs Thursday’s cooking. She always makes too much, every year. Up to my knees in sprouts.” He pauses, but doesn’t look away. “We’d be glad to have you,” he says, insistent. “Really, we would.” 

Morse is saved from the embarrassment that’s starting to flood his cheeks pink by the miraculous appearance of Donnington Bridge. “Here,” he says, pulling up behind Doctor DeBryn’s familiar car. “They said the towpath?”

Thursday begrudgingly drops the matter. “Yes,” he says, opening the door. “There’s Strange.” 

Strange is waiting for them at the mouth of the path that leads down to the river, scarf wrapped tight around his neck and breaths gusting into white mist. “Morning Inspector,” he says. “Morning Morse. Bit of a nasty one, this.” 

Thursday leads the way down to the river. The steep path is slippery with ice and frost, and Morse nearly loses his footing more than once. They turn right along the towpath, and there, about fifty feet away on the other side of the bridge, is Doctor DeBryn and a dead body. 

Morse has lost count of how many times he’s seen that sight.

The doctor is kneeling next to the body, caught in the act of laying a white sheet over the face. Thursday calls a greeting and he looks up, squinting through his glasses more than a little owlishly. “Ah,” he says. “Inspector, Morse. Good of you to join us.” He gestures expansively to the body at his feet, but there’s an edge of something under his theatrics, Morse thinks, an edge of disquiet, discomfort. “A white female, in her mid to late thirties. No identification. She was found this morning by a jogger, I understand.” 

“Poor sod got a hell of a fright,” Strange comments. “Trewlove’s talking to him now. Took him down to the station to keep him warm. He seemed a bit disturbed by the whole business.” 

“I’d be surprised if he weren’t,” DeBryn observes. He peels back the sheet and rests it carefully around the woman’s shoulders. Her face is pretty in a very straightforward way, blonde hair spread out across the frozen path beneath her head, traces of makeup—mascara, lipstick—still staining her skin. That, however, isn’t the focal point. The woman’s throat has been laid open practically ear to ear, exposing—as far as Morse can see—trachea, larynx, even, with the faintest hint of white bone, the spine. The edges of the wound are remarkably neat and clean, but Morse’s attention is caught by something else.

“Her necklace,” Thursday says, echoing Morse’s thoughts. “He didn’t take off her necklace.” 

“Indeed,” DeBryn confirms. “Nearly took off her head, but not the necklace.”

“So she wasn’t killed here,” Morse says, nodding towards the wound. “There would be blood all over the towpath if she’d been killed here.” 

DeBryn nods. “That would be my assumption. I’ll know more once I’ve had a chance to perform the autopsy.” He beckons to the ambulance men who have made their way down the icy path, stretcher held between them.

Morse steps back to give them room. Thursday stands beside him, studying the towpath, the river, the boathouses on the other bank, the grey sky and the pale sun. “Not much cover here,” he says thoughtfully. “Anyone could’ve come and interrupted him at any moment.”

“Confident,” Strange remarks. 

“Or arrogant,” Thursday adds. 

“The cut was very clean,” Morse says. “And her clothes, too, did you see that? No way they would be that clean if she’d been wearing them when she was killed.”

“He dressed her before he brought her body here,” Thursday completes. 

“Looks that way.”

“But why _here_?” Strange asks. “Not exactly the best place to hide a body.”

“That assumes he was trying to hide her,” Morse says. “She was out in the open, just waiting for someone to stumble across her. He left her for us to find.” 

“Is he trying to get caught?” Strange asks. 

“More likely he’s trying to tell us that we won’t catch him,” Morse answers. 

“Well,” Thursday says, his expression grim. “We’d better prove him wrong.” 

 

Strange goes back to Cowley to check up on the traumatised jogger and, after a couple of sweeps of the area to see if anyone else saw anything, Morse and Thursday head to the hospital. DeBryn is just finishing up the autopsy, gloves up to his elbows, and when he sees them enter his expression twists back to that same look of disquiet Morse saw earlier. “Gentlemen,” he says. “I have some news for you.” 

“Oh?” Thursday asks. 

“This woman’s name is Pandora Pullman,” DeBryn answers. “Thirty four years of age.” He pauses, just for a moment. “She was a nurse at this hospital.”

Morse hears Thursday’s rapid intake of breath. “Did you know her?” 

“Not personally, no,” DeBryn answers. “One of the nurses who assists me with these autopsies, however, does. Did. She was extremely upset. I’m afraid I sent her home, although I can give you her address if you want to speak to her.” 

Morse reaches for his notebook. “Please.” 

“Annie Gorsely,” DeBryn says. “Lives at sixty-three Divinity Road. She’s a good woman, Morse.” 

“What about Miss Pullman?” Thursday asks, gently steering the conversation back on track. “What can you tell us?”

“I can tell you that I am extremely glad Mrs Gorsely was not here to witness the autopsy,” DeBryn says bluntly. “The cause of death of exsanguination from the wound in her neck, as I initially surmised. She died shortly before her body was found, sometime between midnight and three o’clock in the morning. I have also found significant signs of torture: broken bones in the hands, several missing toenails. And these.” He lifts the sheet covering the body’s torso, folds it gently around her waist, carefully, as if the woman has any modesty left to protect. 

“Good God,” Thursday curses. “What is _that_?” 

“It’s Greek, I believe,” DeBryn says, his voice a careful monotone. “The letters have been cut into her skin. I only know enough to recognise the alphabet; I was hoping Morse might be able to shed more light on the matter.” 

There’s a sickness twisting the pit of Morse’s stomach. “Yes,” he says, tongue thick in his mouth. He steps closer, leans towards the body. “It’s Greek. It’s—” He breaks off, takes a breath. “There are words here. It’s not just random letters. This says – _euoi_. And here: _tis hodoi_.” He swallows. 

“What does that mean?” Thursday’s voice is brusque. 

Morse knows the brusqueness isn’t directed at him. He clears his throat. “ _Euoi_ is a kind of ritual cry,” he says. “You’d just translate it ‘Ah!’ or ‘Oh!’.” He pauses. Something’s stirring at the back of his mind. “ _Tis hodoi_ means – ‘who is in the way?’. Sir, I think these are lines from a play by Euripides, the _Bacchae_.” 

Thursday’s expression is grim. “Of course they are,” he says. “Anything I should know about the damn play?” 

Morse is frowning. “Townspeople refuse to honour a god, so the god punishes them,” he says. “The god Dionysus, or Bacchus, as the Romans called him. Is that what this man thinks he is? A god?” 

“That, I can’t answer,” DeBryn says. “I can, however, tell you one more thing.” His gaze is solemn. “I’m afraid to say that these injuries were inflicted _before_ Miss Pullman’s death.” 

Morse’s eyebrows jump.

“She was _alive_ when he did this to her?” Thursday spits. 

“She was,” DeBryn says. “He tried very hard to keep her still, I assume in order to make sure that the letters were legible, but the edges are ragged. She was moving. Trying to stop him. To get away from the pain, I would imagine.” DeBryn’s voice is as quiet and calm as it always is, but there’s an emotionlessness to his tone that Morse can understand. 

“Alright,” Thursday says. “Morse, go speak to Mrs Gorsely, see what she can tell you. I’ll meet you back at the station.” He pauses, looks back to DeBryn. “Thank you, doctor.” 

DeBryn crooks a smile that he clearly doesn’t feel and pulls the white sheet up over Pandora Pullman’s face. 

 

Cowley Station is swelteringly warm after the cold of outside. Morse shucks off his coat, leaves it at his desk, and goes to Thursday’s office. “Spoke to Mrs Gorsely, sir.” 

Thursday looks up from the folder lying open in front of him, pipe in one hand. “Yes?” 

“She said she last saw Miss Pullman when they finished at the hospital,” Morse answers. “She thought that she was going to see her boyfriend, and she gave me his name. A Roy Batten, of Cross Street in Cowley. I went to see him. He says that she never showed up.” 

“Does he have an alibi?” 

Morse nods. “When she didn’t show, he met some friends for drinks. They ended up back at a friend’s house, and they confirm that he was there until gone four this morning. He was looking… rough when I saw him.” 

Thursday nods. “No luck with the jogger, either,” he says, heaviness settled in his voice. “Wrong place, wrong time. He doesn’t remember seeing anything. Strange sent him home.” He sighs. “Any other leads?” 

“I’ll have a look at her clothes once DeBryn sends them over,” Morse says. “See if they’re hers, or if he bought them to dress her in. Maybe we can trace them.” 

Thursday nods. “There are officers going door to door around the Donny Bridge area,” he says. “Hopefully they’ll turn something up.” 

Morse nods. “Anything else, sir?” 

“Not at the moment,” Thursday says. He picks up the folder, then pauses, drops it again. “You following up on this Greek thing?”

“I’m looking into it.”

“Any initial thoughts?”

“Too early to say.” 

Thursday’s expression is fixed. “I don’t like this,” he says. “It doesn’t feel right. More so than just that poor woman lying dead on the riverbank. Something strange.” 

“Strange, how, sir?” Morse asks. 

Thursday shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know,” he says. “I suppose I’m just remembering the last time a murderer dropped clues that only you could figure out.” 

Morse remembers that all too well, the rooftop, the sky, the fall. “I’m not the only one who could figure this out,” he says. “BeDryn recognised that it was Greek. Someone would have worked it out without me.” 

“I suppose,” Thursday says, but he doesn’t look convinced. “Well, just, watch yourself, Morse. We don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” 

Morse nods. “Sir,” he says, and goes back to his desk. 

 

They find the next body two days later.

 

It’s splayed out on Christchurch Meadow, out in front of the college boathouses. It’s spotted by a man out walking his dog at around five in the afternoon; Morse gets there by five thirty, with Thursday and Strange on their way from the station. He’s there before DeBryn, this time, and he joins Trewlove next to the corpse. Her lips are set in a thin white line. 

“You don’t have to look,” Morse says softly. “I can take it from here.” 

Trewlove doesn’t look away from the body, from the gaping wound in the neck, from the neat, clean clothes, from the sharp part in his hair, from the blank whiteness of his cheeks. “Can we cover him?”

“We shouldn’t touch him until the doctor gets here,” Morse says. “We don’t want to jeopardise the evidence.” 

Trewlove nods. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t—” She stops, midthought. 

“Go back to the bridge,” Morse says firmly. “Wait for Thursday, guide him here.” 

Trewlove nods shortly, turns, and goes. 

The man’s neck is open, much as Pandora Pullman’s was, but this time there’s no gold chain stretched across the wound. The clothes are neat, the hair is clean. No blood. 

Morse folds his arms and waits. 

Thursday arrives five minutes later, leaving Strange to talk quietly with Trewlove for a moment; DeBryn is only moments behind. “Can you please open his shirt, doctor?” Thursday says, voice stiff and formal. 

DeBryn crouches down wordlessly, unbuttons the shirt with fingers that are pale and cold. Morse knows what to expect this time so it’s less of a blow: words, carved into the man’s pale, dead flesh, stark and bright. He can feel Thursday’s gaze on him and he takes a step closer, peers down. “ _Io Bacchai_ ,” he reads. “And then again: _io Bacchai_.” 

“The same play?”

Morse nods wordlessly. 

Thursday makes a noise that Morse really only knows to characterise as a snarl. “The same play, the same wounds, the same lack of blood,” he says. “And in daylight, this time. Middle of the afternoon. He’s taunting us.” 

Morse doesn’t exactly disagree. There’s a bitter note sitting at the back of his tongue. “And next to water, too,” he says. “The first victim was only found twenty minutes down the river.” 

“That’s right,” Thursday says. “Anything in this play about water?” 

Morse has read Euripides’ _Bacchae_ five times in the days since he first saw those letters carved into Pandora Pullman’s stomach. “Nothing thematically significant,” he says. “It could just be an easy method of disposal for him? We could be looking at someone who owns a boat, or has access to one.” 

“That includes every student in the university,” Thursday points out. “All the colleges row. Most of them have punts.” 

“Can’t get punts down this bit of the river,” Strange says, coming to join them. Trewlove still keeps her distance, but Morse can’t blame her. “It’s too deep. The poles don’t—” Strange stops dead, and all the colour drains from his face. He’s staring at the body, mouth hanging slightly open, shock sharp in his eyes. 

“Strange?” Thursday asks. “What is it?”

Morse knows the answer before he hears it.

“I know him,” Strange says, tone oddly flat. He looks up, expression faintly green. “I mean, I don’t know him well. He’s not a mate. He’s a lawyer. Name of Alistair McKinley. Does a lot of work at the Crown Court. He’s cross-examined me a fair few times.” 

Thursday’s face has gone oddly still. He glances to DeBryn, then to back to Strange. “First a nurse who works at your hospital, doctor. Then a lawyer who’s worked with you, Sergeant.” His gaze falls on Morse. “All mutilated with the subject of your undergraduate degree, Morse.” 

There’s a chill settling into Morse’s heart that’s nothing to do with the December weather. “Do you think we’re being targeted?” he asks quietly. 

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” is all the answer Thursday gives. 

 

Morse sits at his desk and goes through Euripides’ _Bacchae_ , looking for water. There are a number of references, but, like he originally thought, none of any particular importance. Most likely that the riverside locations are pure convenience – not that that is much help, seeing as, as Thursday observed, most of Oxford has access to a boat in some way or another. 

Strange treads in, cheeks pinked from the cold. “Spoke to the doctor,” he says. His skin is still a little pale, eyes a little distracted. “Much the same as the last, although he mentioned that it looks like the murderer got a little more handsy before killing him than with the last one.” 

Morse cocks an eyebrow. “Handsy?”

“More torture,” Strange says, jaw tight. “His back looks like he was whipped. But then everything was cleaned and he was redressed, just like Miss Pullman.” He pauses. “His wife came in to confirm his identity,” he says, quieter. “Confirmed that the clothes he was wearing were his own, too. The clothes he was wearing the last time she saw him, which was the day before yesterday. Apparently Mr McKinley liked to work late at times.” 

“Which suggests that Miss Pullman’s clothes were her own as well,” Morse says. 

Strange nods. 

“Did you speak to the wife?” Morse answers. “Did she know Miss Pullman?”

Strange shakes his head. “She wasn’t in a right state for me to be interviewing her,” he says. “Trewlove took her home. I’ll pop by tomorrow morning.” He pauses, studies Morse. “You should head home, matey. Get something to eat. It’s late.” 

Morse offers him a wan smile. “Just want to check a few things before I leave,” he says. 

“Thursday’s already gone home?” 

Morse nods.

Strange watches him a moment longer. “Alright then,” he says. “I’ll see you in the morning.” 

Morse goes back to _Bacchae_. He doesn’t leave until past midnight. 

 

“Sorry to bother you, Mrs McKinley,” Strange says, his voice overflowing with that softness it fills with when he’s talking to bereaved relatives. “Do you remember me from yesterday? Detective Sergeant Strange?” 

Mrs McKinley’s eyes are redrimmed, her clothes wrinkled and mismatched. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, of course. Come in, Sergeant.” 

“This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Morse,” Strange says, but Mrs McKinley barely seems to notice his presence. Morse follows Strange through to the living room, carpeted in cream and wallpapered in blue. “We’d just like to ask you a few questions about your husband.” 

Mrs McKinley looks at them both, eyes wide. “Tea?” she asks, voice almost shrill. 

Morse and Strange share a glance. “Please,” Strange says, smiling. 

Mrs McKinley goes into the kitchen, leaving them to sit awkwardly on the sofa. “I don’t think we’re going to get much out of her,” Strange says. “She’s too shaken up.”

Morse nods. “Does she have family local?” he asks quietly. “I don’t think she should be alone.”

“She said last night that they don’t have any kids,” Strange answers. “Don’t know about parents or anything. Said she’s got friends, but I guess they’re busy in the day.” 

Mrs McKinley emerges from the kitchen. There’s a tray in her hand, a tray carrying a teapot, three cups, a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. She sets it on the table in front of them and carefully serves them, hands shaking but only a little. Morse notices the new smell on her breath—whiskey, strong and potent—but doesn’t comment. She sits in the armchair across from them, sips at her tea. “How can I help you, officers?” she asks. 

Morse lets Strange go through the usual questions: _Where were you last night? Can anyone confirm that? Where did you see him last? Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your husband?_ He watches Mrs McKinley carefully, slowly drinking his tea. She doesn’t answer Strange confidently, doesn’t act like she’s alright, but she can answer. She can speak. 

“Mrs McKinley,” he says. “Did your husband ever speak about a Miss Pandora Pullman?” 

Mrs McKinley looks at him, expression blank. “No,” she says. “Not to my knowledge. Who is that?” 

“She was a nurse at the John Radcliffe,” Morse answers. “Her body was found a few days ago. There are certain similarities between her death and your husband’s.” No need to go into the specifics. “I was wondering if there might be a connection between them. You’re sure he never mentioned her?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Mrs McKinley repeats, but then a moment passes and her face crumples. “But my mind’s been all over the place since yesterday. I can’t think straight.” She puts her teacup down, hands shaking, and fumbles a handkerchief out of her sleeve, dabs at her eyes. “I’m sorry about this.” 

“There’s no need to apologise,” Morse answers, as gentle as he can. “We understand that this is difficult for you.” 

“We can come back later, leave you to yourself for a while,” Strange offers. “No skin off our noses.” 

Mrs McKinley nods, face still half-hidden behind the handkerchief, then, when Morse is already half on his feet, she looks up all of a sudden, eyes wide. “Wait,” she says, voice thick but clear. “Wait, I forgot. Alistair’s – diary. His diary. It’s in his office. It might be of help to you.”

Morse glances at Strange, then back to Mrs McKinley. “Would you mind fetching it for us?” he asks. 

Mrs McKinley nods furiously. “Yes,” she says. “Yes.” She stands, clutching her handkerchief to her stomach, and leaves the room for a moment. When she returns, she’s holding a large leatherbound diary in one hand. She holds it out to Morse. “There,” she says, once he’s taken it. “Maybe Miss Pullman is in there somewhere.” Her face twists again, and she stumbles, sits down hard on the sofa. “I’m sorry,” she says, wiping her tears away. “I’m so sorry.” 

Strange crouches next to her. “Is there someone who can come over and keep an eye on you?” he asks. “Anyone we can call?” 

Mrs McKinley seems not to hear him for a moment, then she lets out a sigh, straightens. Her eyes are bright but she’s not crying anymore. “Thank you for your concern, Sergeant,” she says, “but I will be fine.” 

Morse doesn’t believe that any more than Strange does. 

“I don’t think we should leave her on her own like that,” he says, when they’re standing on the front step, Mrs McKinley’s goodbyes still ringing in their ears. 

“Me neither,” Strange confesses, shoulders slumped. “But if she doesn’t want our help, there’s not much we can do about it.” He sighs, shakes his head. “Just better hope there’s something useful in that diary. We’ve not got much to go on as it is.” 

Morse looks down at the diary in his hand, at the smoothness of the leather and the brightness of the pages’ gold edging. “I’ll go back to the station, go through it there,” he says. “See what turns up.” 

Strange nods. “Want a lift?”

Morse shakes his head. “It’s not far from here,” he says. “I think I’ll walk.”

 

The station is oddly quiet. Both Bright’s and Thursday’s offices are empty, and most of the desks are unoccupied, too: the unrelenting cold is making people restless, making them act up, emptying the station to deal with household arguments and drunken louts harassing carol singers. It’s the run up to Christmas, too, with all the stress that brings: shoplifting, petty theft, fraud. 

Morse takes a seat at his desk and flips opens Alistair McKinley’s diary. 

He’s still there, bent over the diary, when Thursday gets back in nearly an hour later. “Morse,” Thursday says, and then when that doesn’t elicit a response he raps on the edge of Morse’s desk. “ _Sergeant_ ,” he says. 

Morse looks up, jolted out of his crime-related reverie. “Sir,” he says, his gaze momentarily caught by the cover of Dodd’s edition of Euripides that’s right next to Thursday’s knuckles. “I think I might have something.” 

“Oh?” 

Morse nods, then spins the diary around. “Alistair McKinley’s diary,” he explains. “There are whole evenings blocked off, one every fortnight. They’re unlabelled. No indication of what they might be for, only a location: Marsden House.” 

“Marsden House?” Thursday echoes. “That’s on the river, isn’t it? A big old pile out on the other side of Wolvercote.” 

Morse nods. “At one point it was owned by one of the colleges, St Sebastian’s, I think. Rumour has it they sold it ten or so years ago to an anonymous buyer. Very wealthy, by all accounts.” 

“You’re thinking this anonymous buyer might know something useful about Alistair McKinley’s death,” Thursday completes. “Good. Chase that lead, Morse, and let me know where it ends up.” 

Morse nods. “Where have you been, sir? I didn’t think you’d been in today.” 

“Went back to the two crime scenes, then went to have another word with Miss Pullman’s boyfriend, Roy Batten,” Thursday says. “Ran McKinley past him, but he didn’t recognise the name. Still seemed pretty shaken by the whole business. Said he hasn’t been into work since they found the body.” 

“Can’t say I blame him,” Morse says. 

Thursday pauses for a moment, gaze faraway. “No,” he says eventually. “No, I can’t, either.” 

 

Morse gets in touch with the land registry and only spends half an hour sitting waiting on the phone, flicking through _Bacchae_ one more time, until he gets a name. He puts the phone down and goes to tap on the door of Thursday’s office. “Got a name for the owner of Marsden House,” he says. “A Mr Ellis Lawrence. Owns a string of properties throughout the Home Counties and London; Marsden House seems to be his first Oxfordshire purchase. Bought it nine years ago from St Sebastian’s, like I thought.” 

Thursday grabs his coat. “Fancy a drive?” 

The sky is cold and grey, the countryside just as drab. The roads are quiet so their journey out to Marsden House doesn’t take long, and Morse pulls up on the vast driveway a little before three in the afternoon. Thursday leans forward and peers out at the house itself, a sprawling Edwardian number with carefully manicured lawns and a veritable forest of leafless trees. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” he comments. “No lights in the windows, no cars on the drive.” 

“Not _no_ lights in the windows,” Morse says, pointing. It’s true that the main windows are dark and shuttered, but there’s a light coming from around the side of the house, seeping into the grey December gloom. “Maybe a servant’s kitchen?” 

“Makes sense if Mr Lawrence doesn’t live here all year around,” Thursday agrees. “Got to have someone to dust the china.” He opens the car door, gets out. “Let’s go see if anyone knows anything about Mr McKinley.” 

Thursday knocks at the imposing front door, ignoring the ornate knocker and preferring instead to hammer on the wood with his closed fist. Morse studies the front of the house as they wait, hands tucked in his pockets. “It’s not very well kept, sir,” he says, frowning up at the detailing above the front door. “See? There’s dirt in the frieze up there.” 

“I know,” Thursday says. “The windows need a good clean and the roof’s not in very good nick. Whoever Ellis Lawrence is, he doesn’t seem to care very much about his Oxfordshire home away from home.” 

He hammers on the door again, and in response a light flicks on in the hallway. Morse hears footsteps pattering against tiles, then the scrape of bolts being drawn back and the huge door edges open. A middle-aged man peers out around the door. “Yes?” he asks, short and sharp.

“Good afternoon,” Thursday says, flashing his badge. “I’m Detective Inspector Thursday, with the City Police, and this is Detective Sergeant Morse. We’re looking for the owner of this property.” 

“Mr Lawrence isn’t here,” the man answers, just as snippy, but then something seems to get the better of him and he squints closer at Thursday’s badge. “What’s this about, then?” 

“We’re investigating the murder of a man named Alistair McKinley,” Thursday answers, “and we have reason to believe that he visited Marsden House. Does the name ring a bell?” 

“No,” their welcoming host answers, quick enough that he doesn’t seem to actually think about it. He relents a little. “Perhaps Mr Lawrence might know more. He doesn’t tend to want us around the house when he’s having his parties.” 

Morse cocks an eyebrow at the word ‘party’. “ ‘You’ being the household staff?” he asks. 

The man nods and opens the door a little further. Morse can see the house’s shadowy entranceway behind him, everything covered in dustsheets, and then down a little corridor the faintest flickering warmth of a fire. “The name’s Harry Durham,” he says, offering Thursday a firm handshake, then Morse. “My wife and I take care of Marsden House while Mr Lawrence is away. Which he is a lot. There’s us and a couple of other girls who come in to do the laundry, that kind of thing. In the summer, there’s a couple of lads who come and help me with the grounds – but there’s not much to be done in that area this time of year.” 

“What can you tell us about Mr Lawrence’s parties?” Thursday asks, forehead creased. 

“Not much,” Durham answers. “Like I said: me and the wife get kicked out, send down to the gatehouse lodge. You’ll’ve passed it on you way in.” He shrugs. “Not the most comfortable, but it’ll do for a night. We come back up in the morning and clear everything away. Plates, cups. A lot of empty wine bottles, if you catch my drift.” 

“Who attends these parties?” Morse asks. 

“We don’t get to see the guest list, I’m afraid,” Durham answers. “We’re not even really sure that Mr Lawrence attends. We don’t see him come or go. He’s secretive like that.” 

Thursday’s frowning. “How often does Mr Lawrence visit?” he asks. “Is he here often?” 

“Oh, no,” Durham answers, shaking his head. “We barely ever see him. He telephones ahead a few days before a party, so’s we know to clear out and make sure all the rooms are aired and cleaned. But he doesn’t actually _live_ here.” 

“So he hasn’t been here over the past week or so?” Thursday asks. 

Durham shakes his head emphatically. “No,” he says. “No, not at all.” 

“And you’re _sure_ you don’t recognise the name Alistair McKinley?” Morse asks. 

“I’m sure. Sorry.” 

“Pandora Pullman?” Morse asks, just on the off chance. 

Durham frowns, recognition sparking in his eyes. “Pandora Pullman,” he repeats, slower, then turns back to the house. “ _Mary!_ ” he calls, voice so loud it almost makes Morse jump. “Mary, come here!” 

Lighter footsteps come pattering down the hall, and a woman that Morse is assuming is Mary comes into the light. “Harry, who are these people?” she says, that same note of distrust in her voice as was in his when he opened the door. 

“They’re the police, Mary,” Durham answers. “Now, tell me. What was the name of the girl that Roy was telling us about the last time he was here? It was Pandora something, wasn’t it?” 

Morse feels Thursday stiffen. “Roy?” he asks. “That’s not Roy Batten by any chance, is it?” 

Mary nods, although she seems to be answering her husband rather than Thursday. “Yes, Pandora Pullman,” she answers. “I remember because it’s such a nice name. Rolls off the tongue.” She finally looks to Thursday. “And yes, Roy Batten! He’s a nice young lad. Helps my Harry with the gardening in the summer.”

“He was round here a few weeks ago, clearing dead branches from the trees before one of Mr Lawrence’s parties,” Durham adds. “Couldn’t stop talking about his Miss Pullman. Seemed very much in love, bless him.” He pauses for a moment, frowns. “Why do you ask?” 

“I’m afraid to say that Miss Pullman has also been murdered,” Thursday answers. “Seemingly by the same person who killed Mr McKinley. Do you remember Mr Batten saying anything else about her? Anything strange?” 

“No,” Mary answers, now holding her husband’s hand. Durham himself is white with shock and apparently incapable of speaking. “No, I’m afraid not. He was just so… _happy_ about her. Nothing untoward, Inspector, I swear.” She looks up at Durham, grips his hand tighter. “He wouldn’t hurt her,” she insists. “He’s a good boy.” 

Thursday flashes a neutral smile. “Thank you for your time,” he says, and fishes a card out of his pocket. “Please, if you remember anything else about either Mr McKinley or Miss Pullman, do get in touch.” 

Mary Durham takes the card in her small, water-wrinkled hands, and nods. “Of course,” she says. “Of course.” 

When the Durhams close the front door of Marsden House once more, that air of neglect comes seeping back over the sprawled house. Morse gets back into the car, rests his hands on the steering wheel and waits for Thursday to join him. “So,” Thursday says, voice tight. “I think we need to have a word with this mysterious Mr Lawrence.”

Morse nods. “I got a list of his other properties from the land registry,” he says. “I’ll chase that up, see if I can track him down.” He pauses. “Do you think he’s involved in the murders?”

Thursday shakes his head slowly, but it’s not a shake of negation. It’s something he does when he’s thinking. “Don’t know,” he says. “It’s a hell of a coincidence, both victims being linked to Marsden House. But if the Durhams haven’t seen him in Oxford and he’s got a solid alibi for the times of the deaths…” He trails off. “We need more information. Drop me off at Roy Batten’s place on your way back to the station, won’t you? I think I’ll go see what he knows – because, of course, this Mr Lawrence could just be a smokescreen.” 

Morse nods, following Thursday’s line of thought. “A mysterious, wealthy man who no one around here really knows could be a good scapegoat,” he agrees. “Which would perhaps suggest that the link is intentional.” He frowns. “Mrs McKinley said that her husband didn’t come home the night before he died. She also said that was fairly usual, didn’t she?” 

“You thinking he was having an affair with Miss Pullman?” Thursday asks. 

Morse shrugs. “It would explain the connection between them.”

“Wouldn’t explain that Greek, though.” 

“True.” 

They sit in the car for a little while longer, and then Morse turns the key in the ignition and pulls away down the drive. 

“What I said the other day,” Thursday says after a moment. “About you coming and spending Christmas with us.” 

Morse frowns, concentrates pointedly on the road. “I seem to remember an invite to dinner, nothing more than that,” he answers. 

“Well, you can just come for dinner if you like,” Thursday says, and Morse knows very well that he’s being just as pointed in his misreading of Morse’s answer. “The whole day tends to be one long conveyor belt of food and drink, if I’m honest, so you probably wouldn’t want to drive afterwards. And there’s always the spare room.”

“So I’m staying the night, now?”

“I’m being serious, Morse,” Thursday says. “Christmas isn’t a time to be alone.” 

Morse’s lips twitch downwards before he can stop them. He focuses on the road, on the shadows stretching across the tarmac as the night darkens. “I’ll bear it in mind, sir.” 

Thursday watches him a moment longer, gaze intent. “I’m sure you will,” he says, and turns to look out of the window. 

 

It’s mid-afternoon when Morse gets back to the station. He sits on the telephone for the rest of the day, calling around various stations in London, chasing up Mr Ellis Lawrence. The man’s not a familiar face to many police stations which is probably a good sign, and Morse eventually finds a telephone number and an address. He calls the number, but Lawrence doesn’t pick up; he gets a housekeeper instead, who says that Mr Lawrence is out at a meeting, but could she perhaps take a message? Morse bites his tongue, leaves a message and a number, and waits. 

The telephone on his desk rings at a little before eight, when Morse is halfway through _Bacchae_ ’s third choral ode. He picks it up. “Morse.” 

“ _This is Detective Sergeant Morse, I presume?_ ”

“It is,” Morse answers. The voice isn’t familiar, but it’s soft and plummy, rich with wine and money and breeding.

“ _Mr name is Ellis Lawrence. Maggie, my housekeeper, passed on a message from a Detective Sergeant Morse at Cowley Police Station, in Oxford. She told me you want to talk to me, Sergeant Morse._ ” 

“Yes, Mr Lawrence, thank you for getting back to me,” Morse says. He briefly explains, runs through the murders, Alistair McKinley, Marsden House. The friendly Durhams. He elides mention of the parties, partially because it doesn’t seem necessary to get the Durhams in trouble but also because he doesn’t want to put Lawrence on the defensive. “I was hoping you might be able to clarify your relationship with Mr McKinley,” he concludes, flips opens his notebook, primes his pen.

“ _Alistair was a friend,_ ” Lawrence says, his voice subdued even over the telephone. “ _We were at Oxford together, years ago now. Lost touch for a long time, but when I started making business enquiries in the area we reconnected. I host gatherings at Marsden House every now and then, informal occasions, and Alistair was a regular attendee: I can only assume that those were the evenings in his diary._ ”

“Can you confirm the dates of the last of these gatherings?” 

“ _I’ll need to find my diary. I’m sorry, please give me a minute._ ” 

Morse sits on the line until Lawrence finds his diary, and then they crossreference dates until it becomes clear that, yes, that’s exactly what the appointments in McKinley’s diary were. “And where were you on the day of Mr McKinley’s death?” Morse asks.

“ _In board meetings all day,_ ” Lawrence answers. “ _For a business that I am involved in. I can give you the contact details of others there, if you like._ ”

“That would be helpful,” Morse answers. “And what about two nights before then? The Monday night and Tuesday morning?” 

“ _At home,_ ” Lawrence answers. “ _My housekeeper can confirm that: she lives on the property. Additionally, I played squash at six in the morning with a friend, at a club in London._ ”

“I’ll need all those details, if that’s alright.”

“ _Of course. Anything if it will help you catch whoever did this to Alistair_.” Lawrence reels off a list of names and telephone numbers, his voice occasionally catching, occasionally pausing. “ _Is there anything else, Sergeant?_ ” he asks eventually.

“No, I think that’s all for now,” Morse says, flipping back through his notes. “Thank you for your time, Mr Lawrence.” 

“ _I hope you catch him,_ ” Lawrence says. “ _Goodbye._ ”

Morse puts the receiver down and stares at it for a long minute. The moment passes, though, and he starts on the lengthy process of confirming Lawrence’s alibis. 

 

“Morning, sir,” Morse says when Thursday opens the door, hands tucked deep in his pockets. His breath frosts the air and the warmth of the Thursday’s house is tantalisingly out of reach.

Thursday studies him for a moment, forehead furrowed. “Those are the same clothes you wore yesterday,” he says flatly. 

Morse glances down at himself and briefly considers denying it. “They are, sir,” he says. “I spent the night at the station, following up on Mr Lawrence. Didn’t have time to go home.” 

Thursday’s frown deepens. “You slept at the station?” 

“Never said I slept, sir.” 

There’s an expression on Thursday’s face that Morse is getting very familiar with. “Morse,” he says tersely, takes a breath, then seems to reconsider. He ducks back inside, collects his hat, kisses Mrs Thursday goodbye and mutters something to her that Morse doesn’t hear, then leaves the house and closes the door behind him. “If we didn’t need to get ahead on this case,” he says when they’re in the car, “I’d send you home right now and order you to get some sleep.” 

“I’m fine, sir,” Morse protests.

“Like hell you are,” Thursday snaps, suddenly almost angry. He sits down in his seat a little, and out of the corner of his eye Morse can see that he’s visibly calming himself down. “You’re a good copper, Morse,” Thursday says finally. “That brain of yours is a credit to the station. But it won’t help any of us if you run yourself into the ground.” He sighs. “You don’t normally act like this. Yes, you’ll push yourself, but I can’t remember the last time you spent the whole night at the station.” He pauses, and Morse drives them down the icy streets in a breath of silence. “What’s going on?” Thursday asks. “You can talk to me, Morse, you know that.” 

Morse is quiet for a long moment, eyes on the road. There’s a bitterness at the back of his throat that he doesn’t want to address, doesn’t want to express, but Thursday’s just sitting there staring at him and he knows full well that he’s not going to let him get out of this car until he’s said something. “Joyce is spending Christmas with her in-laws,” he says tightly, careful not to skid as he turns a corner. 

“Your sister?” 

Morse nods. “She’s going up to Scotland somewhere, maybe Edinburgh.” His fingers are unexpectedly tight around the steering wheel. “We’d usually see each other, mostly on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day. Unfortunately that’s not happening this year.” 

Morse is mildly surprised when Thursday’s initial reaction isn’t to immediately reiterate the offer of Christmas dinner. They drive for a little while in silence, but it doesn’t last. “Morse,” Thursday says slowly. “You have people here who care about you, you know that? You’re not just a detective. You’re a human being, too.”

A muscle twitches in Morse’s jaw. “So were Pandora Pullman and Alistair McKinley,” he says. “They deserve my full attention.” 

“Which they’re not going to get if you’re falling asleep at your desk.” 

“I haven’t fallen asleep at my desk.”

“Give it time.” 

The rest of the drive to the station is made in a silence that isn’t quite comfortable. Morse parks up and kills the engine, but doesn’t get out of the car. Neither does Thursday, but after a moment he leans forward, looks up out of the windscreen. “Look,” he says. “It’s started snowing.” 

Morse is more interested in Strange, who is currently barrelling down the front steps of the station with a dark look on his face. Strange notices them in the car, comes over and leans down to Morse’s window, which he rolls down. “We’ve got another one,” he says, jaw tight. 

Morse’s stomach drops. “Like Pullman and McKinley?”

Strange nods. “Up on Port Meadow,” he says, then glances up at the sky, pulls his collar tighter. “Gonna try and get there before the snow settles in. DeBryn’s on his way.” 

“We’ll meet you there,” Thursday says, and Strange nods. 

Morse winds up the window and restarts the engine, swings out of the station and back onto the road. “I spoke to Ellis Lawrence last night,” he says. “He has alibis for the times of both the murders. They check out.” 

“And Roy Batten seems to have spent the last few days drinking himself into a coma,” Thursday says flatly. “I had to call an ambulance to take him to the Radcliffe last night, he was such a mess. Left a PC on his door with instructions to notify me as soon as he was sobered up and ready to talk. Given that I’ve heard nothing, I’m assuming he’s still vomiting his guts up into a bucket.” 

“Not exactly in a fit state to be murdering anyone,” Morse supplies. 

“Exactly,” Thursday agrees. “So we’re back to square one.” 

 

The snow worsens over the course of the drive, and by the time they reach the crime scene the body is already covered in a thin layer of white. DeBryn’s expression is grim, and he gets straight to the point without a greeting. “The same as the others: throat slit, signs of torture, Greek words cut into her stomach. Care to do the honours, Morse?” 

Morse crouches down, lifts the fabric of the woman’s blouse where DeBryn indicates. A chill runs down his spine that’s nothing to do with the weather. “ _Tacha ta Pentheos melathra diatinaxetai pesemasin,_ ” he reads, and he’s been reading _Bacchae_ enough lately that he can place it immediately. “It means ‘Pentheus’ halls will soon be shaken into ruins’.” He swallows. “The previous two victims have just been words, phrases at most,” he says. “This is two lines of a choral ode. It has meaning.”

“So what does it mean?” Strange asks. “He’s going to destroy a hall?” 

“I imagine it’s probably more rhetorical than that,” Morse answers. It comes out more snide than he intends. “Maybe he’s telling us that he’s intending to escalate his killings.” 

“Not sure how they could escalate,” Strange says. “Three bodies in a little over a week. That’s pretty intense, even for this psychopath.” 

“Things can always escalate,” Thursday says, and his voice is unexpectedly hoarse. 

Morse looks up at him, then drops the woman’s blouse back into place. “Sir?” he asks. “Are you alright?” 

Thursday’s jaw is set. “Looks like it’s my turn to recognise the corpse,” he says. 

Morse gets to his feet. “You know her?”

“She’s a fellow at one of the colleges,” Thursday answers. “Doctor Kathryn Wheeler. At Lady Matilda’s, I believe. The women’s college. She helped out on a case a few years back, before your time. A kind, intelligent woman.” He stares at her a moment longer, then shakes himself, looks up at Morse. “I don’t get it,” he says flatly. “Why these people? They must be being chosen because of us: it’s far too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Morse says, shaking his head. “If someone wanted to send the police a message like this, choosing people who are only tenuously linked to us wouldn’t be a good way to go about it. You’d want family members, friends. Not a lawyer who occasionally worked with Strange or an academic you spoke to years ago.” 

“Don’t know about that,” Strange offers quietly. “It seems to be working.” 

They get out of the way for DeBryn’s ambulance men and duck under the meagre shelter of the riverside trees. “Three bodies by three different stretches of the Isis,” Thursday says. “All three killed in the same way, all three mutilated in the same way. And all three linked, however loosely, to Cowley Police Station.” He shakes his head. “I need to talk to Bright about this. Make sure everyone’s on the alert. God knows, he could try to attack a police officer next.” 

“He’ll have a hell of a time coming for him if he does,” Strange answers. 

Thursday doesn’t seem all that comforted by Strange’s reassurance. “Morse, head to Lady Matilda’s, find out her movements. Strange, drop me back at the station then head up to the Radcliffe for the autopsy.” He pauses, studies them both. “I shouldn’t need to tell you to be careful,” he says, gruffer than usual, “but I will anyway. Watch yourselves.” 

 

The Warden of Lady Matilda’s, an imposing woman by the name of Professor Alison Queen, sits on the edge of her chair, hands folded on her desk, and doesn’t drop Morse’s gaze. “Kathryn,” she says, tone flat. “Kathryn is dead.” 

“I’m afraid so,” Morse answers. “Her body was found up at Port Meadow a few hours ago.” 

Queen takes a breath, clasps her hands tighter. “This is… horrendous,” she says, voice still level, still not shaking. “Doctor Wheeler was a well-loved member of this college. I spoke to her only yesterday lunchtime in the SCR. We discussed – Christmas. Plans for Christmas.” 

“Was that the last time you saw her?” Morse asks. 

“Yes,” Professor Queen confirms immediately. “Yes, we had lunch together, and then she said that she was heading to the Lower Reading Room – ah, the Bodleian. She was on sabbatical this year to write a book on – something to do with Greek tragedy, I believe. That was her speciality.” 

Morse’s heart beats a little faster. “It wouldn’t have been on Euripides’ _Bacchae_ , by any chance?” 

“Maybe,” Queen answers, her gaze distracted. “I’m a linguist myself, Spanish. Not hugely familiar with the classics.” She looks back at Morse, focuses. It’s clearly difficult. “But yes, the name _Bacchae_ does sound familiar.” She blinks. “Is that relevant?” 

“It could be,” Morse answers. “Professor, do the names Pandora Pullman and Alistair McKinley mean anything to you?” 

Queen shakes her head. “I’m afraid not.” 

Morse bites his tongue. “What about Marsden House?” he asks. “Did Doctor Wheeler ever talk to you about Marsden House?” 

Queen thinks for a moment, forehead furrowed. “Not that I can think of,” she says slowly. “Marsden House. That’s the large, pseudo-Gothic building out near Wolvercote, isn’t it? It used to be owned by one of the colleges. Lovelace?”

“St Sebastian’s,” Morse corrects. 

“St Sebastian’s, of course,” Queen muses, then she looks up, gaze bright and sharp through her haze of grief. “That was Kathryn’s alma mater.” 

Morse blinks. “What?”

“Kathryn did her undergraduate degree at St Sebastian’s,” Queen repeats. “Surprising, I know, but it’s one of the more progressive colleges in the university. They admit a small number of female undergraduates each year, have done for a long while. Only the best – but Kathryn was the best.” Her lips twitch downwards. 

Morse’s heart is beating faster in his chest. No such thing as coincidences. “Are you familiar with Ellis Lawrence?” he asks slowly. 

Queen looks blank for a long moment, but recognition slowly dawns. “I don’t know anyone by that name exactly,” she says, “but I spoke to Kathryn once about someone called Ellis. He was one of her tutorial partners. Another classicist at St Sebastian’s.” The room is startlingly quiet, sound muted by the snow still falling past the window. “They were friends, from what I could tell. She didn’t speak about him often, but when she did, it was with affection.” 

Morse’s head is whirling. “And you’re sure the name was Ellis?” 

Queen nods. “I’m sure,” she says. 

“Alright,” Morse says. “Thank you very much for your help, Professor Queen.” 

Queen smiles at him, but it’s an empty gesture. “Catch whoever did this,” she says, soft and quiet. “Catch them.” 

 

Morse goes back to Cowley CID, goes back to his desk and sits there for a long moment, staring at the hardbound copy of the _Bacchae_ that’s still sitting there next to his telephone. Strange isn’t back and Thursday isn’t in his office, and there’s a tension thrumming through his veins, tight and tense. He puts up the receiver, dials Lawrence’s home number. There’s no answer for a long time, and he sits there, listening to it ring and ring and ring. 

“ _Lawrence residence,_ ” a female voice answers, after what seems like an indeterminable length of time. Maggie, the housekeeper.

“Hello, this is DS Morse with Cowley Police,” Morse says. “Is Mr Lawrence there? I need to ask him a few more questions.” 

“ _I’m sorry, Mr Morse,_ ” Maggie answers, “ _but he left London some time yesterday. I think he said he was coming up to Oxford, actually – you might be able to catch him at Marsden House?_ ” 

Morse’s heart is thudding so loud in his chest he can barely breathe. “Thank you,” he says shortly. “Thank you, that’s very useful.” He hangs up, barely even hearing the housekeeper’s goodbyes. He glances around at the empty office, grits his teeth. The snow is grinding Oxford to a halt, trapping people at home and causing accidents all across the city. The police station has emptied quicker than anyone expected – but this can’t wait. This can’t wait. 

Morse pulls a sheet of paper towards him, scribbles out a note to let Thursday know where he’s gone, and leaves it on Thursday’s desk.

The roads are already filling up with snow, white lying thick on the pavements and vehicles that drive too quickly skidding down the city’s hills. Morse drives slowly, carefully, taking his time and avoiding the snarls that he comes across. Most people have more sense than to brave the roads in this weather, fortunately, so his path is mostly clear. The sky is full of snow, thick and heavy overhead, and the people who do have to be out and about on the Oxford roads are swathed in clothes, dark shapes in the falling snow. 

It’s approaching blizzard conditions as Morse gets on the road out towards Wolvercote, slowing him to a creep, a crawl. The thought crosses his mind more than once that this is crazy, that he should turn back, go back to the station, wait out the storm, share his information and his hunch with Thursday and Strange and only when it’s safe go out to pick him up – but he doesn’t turn back. He keeps going, crawling down the snowy lane, the car’s headlights barely cutting through the thick snow at all. 

He turns a corner probably another twenty minute crawl from Marsden House, going slowly around the sharp bend with half an eye on the deep ditches on either side of the snowed-in tarmac. The car is struggling noticeably. It slews round the bend more due to its own momentum than any of Morse’s input, snow fogging the headlights, windscreen wipers scraping ineffectually at the ice building up on the glass.

There’s someone standing in the middle of the road, only feet away from the bonnet. 

Morse twists the steering wheel instinctively, swerving away from the figure but sending the car straight into the deep ditch that runs parallel with the road. The shock of the fall smacks his forehead forward into the steering wheel and pain rockets through his skull. He barks out a groan, brings his hand to his head and flinches as he feels his fingers come away warm and sticky. There’s a haziness to his thoughts, a fuzz to his usually so sharp brain. He tries the engine, mostly because it seems like a vaguely sensible thing to do, but isn’t that surprised when nothing happens. Morse sits there, hands loosely curled around the steering wheel, blinking through the haze in his head, and then he touches his head again, just to feel if it’s got any better. It hasn’t, and instead of just his fingertips getting bloody this time, well, his whole palm comes away red. 

He stares at his bloody hand for a long moment. 

The world outside seems to be getting dimmer. Morse blinks in what little light there is, squints to see if he can make out his surroundings but all there is is white. Snow, snow, more snow. He’s tired. Maybe if he sleeps for a little while, the snow will be gone when he wakes up and then he’ll be able to get back on his way. Where was he going? Something House? To visit someone, but he can’t remember who. 

Morse leans his head back against the headrest and closes his eyes, just for a moment. The last thing he feels before he sleeps is a sudden burst of cold and the gust of snow against his skin, as if someone had just opened the car door. 

 

Morse wakes to a dull throbbing in his head and a sharp pain in his wrists and forearms. He frowns, tries to shift to alleviate the headache but that only makes the pain in his arms worse so he grimaces and opens his eyes. 

His heart starts thudding harder in his chest.

The room has no windows and only a single door, closed and, by the looks of it, bolted shut from the outside. The ceiling is low enough for the chains around his wrists to be attached to a metal bracket, set deep into the stone: that’s why his arms hurt, that’s why his chest is tight. He’s been hanging from the ceiling, unconscious or sleeping or drugged, and while he was unconscious and chained someone took his clothes, all of them. The air is cold, pricking goosebumps onto his skin, and the ground beneath his feet—his bare feet—is cold concrete. The walls are similarly undecorated. There’s a long table along one wall, clean and tidy, but for a second Morse stares at what’s on that table and forgets how to breathe. Knives, scalpels, hammers, pliers. More tools that he recognises but doesn’t have names for. All clean, all neat, ordered by size. 

Morse knows where he is. 

He straightens, takes as much weight off his wrists as he can, peers up and inspects the damage. The cuffs have cut into his skin, slicking blood down his forearms. He can’t get his hands down far enough to check the cut in his head, but when he tentatively presses his forehead into the crook of his arm there’s no blood and he thinks he might be able to feel some kind of dressing covering the gash. That’s something, at least. 

“Hello?” he calls. 

There’s no answer. 

“Is there anyone there?”

Still no answer, and there’s a part of him that’s almost glad. If whoever took him isn’t here, then there’s a chance that he can get free and escape before they return. For a moment he remembers the bodies—Pandora Pullman, Alistair McKinley, Kathryn Wheeler, _Endeavour Morse_ —remembers the gaping wounds in their throats, the words etched into their stomachs – but that’s not helpful right now so he forces himself to stop. He has to be calm. 

Morse tests the cuffs around his wrists again, tries to see if the blood oozing from the cuts is slippery enough for him to get his hands out. He’s still trapped after a few initial tries, so he puts that idea to one side for a while. He sees how far he can move but the bracket is so close-set in the ceiling that he has no real range of movement. He’s, for lack of a better word, trapped. 

Morse is trying very hard not to panic. 

He’s been awake for maybe ten minutes when he hears footsteps from behind the door. Fear paralyses him for a long moment, and all he can do is stand there and wait, heart thundering in his chest so loud it almost hurts. He hears something that sounds like bolts being drawn back, then the door opens and he only gets a brief glimpse of stairs leading upwards—is he underground, maybe a basement?—before the door is shut again and he’s no longer alone.

The man is tall, with blond hair and broad shoulders. He smiles at Morse, then hefts the pile of fabric in his arms. “Your clothes,” he says, his voice bright and well-bred and very, very familiar. “That headwound of yours bled on your shirt before I could get it off you. Had to clean it.” He turns down the corner of what Morse now recognises as his coat, shows him a collar that’s whiter and more starched than it’s been since he bought it. 

Morse’s mouth is dry. “You’re Ellis Lawrence,” he says flatly. 

“I am,” Lawrence says, free and easy. “And you’re Detective Sergeant Morse.” He puts the clothes down on the long table, turns back to survey Morse, arms folded. “I have to say, you’re not quite what I expected.” 

“You killed those people,” Morse says. “Miss Pullman, McKinley, Doctor Wheeler. You killed them all.” 

“That’s correct,” Lawrence answers. He doesn’t seem particularly phased by this. “And, Sergeant, although I imagine you’ve already worked this out, I’m going to kill you, too.” 

“Why?” Morse asks, fighting to keep the fear from his voice. He takes a breath, because Lawrence hasn’t shown any indication of picking up his tools yet so maybe there’s a chance. “What was the point of it all?”

“You’re the detective, Sergeant,” Lawrence says. “Why don’t you tell me?” 

Morse doesn’t know how to answer that, so he doesn’t. “My colleagues know where I am,” he says instead. “They’ll find me, and they’ll find you.” 

Lawrence frowns. “Surely that’s not something you want to be telling me?” he says. “I mean, if I think I’m going to get caught, wouldn’t I be more likely to just get this over with and kill you?” There’s a lightness to his tone that sets Morse’s teeth on edge. “But I’m not going to do that, you’ll be relieved to hear – because even if that’s true and your colleagues at Cowley CID _do_ know exactly where you were going, well, I’m afraid that’s not where you are.” 

Morse’s breathing is loud in the quiet. “This isn’t Marsden House?” 

“Unfortunately for you, no,” Lawrence says, shaking his head. “Do you actually think that I would be so idiotic as to bring my victims to my own house? No, no, no. We’re several miles away from Marsden House, in a property that is completely unconnected to my name and holdings. I’m afraid there’s no way of this location being traced back to me – which is good for me, but not so good for you.” He’s leaning against the table now, arms folded, studying Morse with a sharply critical eye. “What did you make of the Greek?” he asks. 

“The lines from the _Bacchae_?” 

“Oh, good! You worked out where they were from.” Lawrence looks oddly pleased. “I wasn’t sure if Euripides would go over the heads of the city police. I’m glad to say I was wrong.”

Morse is starting to realise that Lawrence doesn’t just want to kill him. He wants to talk. “I read Classics at Lonsdale,” he says, his mouth dry. “It was fairly obvious.” 

Lawrence straightens. Something flickers in his eyes that might almost be respect. “Is that so?” he asks. “Well, isn’t that interesting. A Greats man working for the police. And only a sergeant, too.” He studies Morse for a moment longer, expression inscrutable. “My plan was always for my next kill to be a police officer,” he says slowly. “It is just my good fortune that he happens to be an educated one, too.” He frowns. “Almost a shame.” 

“There was a plan?” Morse says. His heart is still thudding loud in his chest but it’s smoother, now, slower. Keep him talking. Keep him talking. “From what we could tell, there was little to connect the killings outside of the mutilation of the bodies and the locations the bodies were abandoned.” 

“Which was?” 

Testing him, like a teacher. “Locations that are easily accessible from the river,” Morse answers. “My colleagues thought it might be linked to the quotations from the _Bacchae_ , but I thought it was more likely to be for ease of disposal, and so that they would be quickly found.” 

“You were correct,” Lawrence says. “Do you often come to the correct conclusions in the face of the opinions of your colleagues?” 

This man values intelligence. He thinks that he’s better than those around him. “Regularly,” Morse answers quickly. “It can be tiring, sometimes.” 

“I can sympathise,” Lawrence says, nodding. He reaches back to the table, picks up a bright silver scalpel and shows it to Morse. “This is what I use for the Greek, by the way. Nice and sharp, means that you can really get some artistry into the letters. I thought about just painting them on initially, but that doesn’t make quite such a striking impression, does it? And I wanted the impression to be striking.” 

“It certainly was,” Morse agrees. 

Lawrence’s gaze narrows. “So, Morse,” he says. “If you’re so clever, can you tell me why exactly I murdered three people and carved passages from a two and a half thousand year play into their bodies?” 

Morse abruptly knows. “You mutilated them because it seems like the kind of thing a murderer in Oxford would do,” he says, knowing the truth of his words even before he sees the approving arch of Lawrence’s eyebrow. “And you murdered them because you wanted to know if you could get away with it.” 

“I imagine it’s a question that occurs to most intelligent minds,” Lawrence says. The scalpel still hangs between his fingers, but after a moment he turns back to the table, returns it to its place. “There’s nothing more intoxicating in this life than that moment where you stand in a room with someone and see them realise that their life is wholly in your hands. You can watch the light in their eyes go out.” He glances back to Morse, lips crooked in half a smile. “Have you ever wondered about that, Morse?” 

Morse’s jaw is set. “I see enough death in my life,” he says. “Can’t say that I’ve ever wanted to add to it.” 

Lawrence hums to himself. “Disappointing,” he says, and comes to stand in front of Morse. He’s so close that Morse can feel the heat of his body, almost feel the fabric of his clothes, but he doesn’t touch him. Morse’s heart thuds faster. “My housekeeper called ahead,” he says, quiet, oddly intimate. “Told me that a nice young Detective Sergeant was looking for me, and that she’d told him I was at Marsden House. It was very helpful of her, don’t you think? Both to me and to you. It meant that I could come and wait for you on the roads outside the house.” His lips curl in half a smile. “Thank you for swerving, by the way. I would have been a little offended if you’d run me over.” 

Morse doesn’t answer. He doesn’t think he’s meant to. 

“I assume you know about the topic of Kathryn’s latest book?” Lawrence asks. 

“The _Bacchae_.” 

“The _Bacchae_ ,” Lawrence echoes. “She was talking about it at one of my parties a few months ago, talking about the wildness and the savagery that lies beneath the veneer of civilisation. I talked to her about it a few days ago, too, when she was standing where you are now. She was a little less articulate, if I’m honest, but I think she probably understood her subject matter a little more.” 

Without warning, he rams his fist into Morse’s stomach. 

Morse chokes, doubles up as much as he can, yelps at the unexpected burst of pain. Lawrence doesn’t move away but he doesn’t hit him again, either, just stands there, too close, too close. “I don’t want you to think that because we’re having a conversation I’m not going to kill you,” he says, one eyebrow arched. “I am. Haven’t quite worked out where I’m going to leave your body yet, but I’m thinking that I might deviate from my pattern. I imagine your death will cause a lot of anger among the City police, so I feel that something a bit more special would be appropriate.” He cocks his head. “Maybe in the Bodleian, seeing as you’re such a man of learning. Or in your old college – Lonsdale, was it? Yes, that would be good, wouldn’t it?” 

Morse’s stomach is still cramping, still tight, but he can’t give up. “Was it intentional that all the previous victims were connected in some way to the police?” he asks, then coughs, winces. 

“How so?” 

“Miss Pullman works with a pathologist at the Radcliffe,” Morse says, because there’s a lick of surprise in Lawrence’s tone that he wasn’t expecting. “McKinley was a criminal barrister, and Doctor Wheeler had previously consulted with the police.” 

“Interesting,” Lawrence says slowly. “No, that wasn’t entirely intentional. Kathryn had mentioned that she’d had some dealings with Cowley CID – an inspector named Thursday, I believe? A memorable name.” He pauses, watches Morse a moment longer. “I realised, after McKinley, that perhaps I could touch a nerve this way. Kathryn was always planned as the third victim, but I did realise that her passing connection to a police officer would add a certain something to her death. I didn’t know about Pandora’s job – but I didn’t exactly know her well. Just a pretty face I’d met in passing.” 

The disinterest in his voice makes Morse’s jaw clench. 

Lawrence is watching him, gaze keen, lips half-quirked in a strange parody of a smile. “This is interesting to me,” he says, half to himself. “By this point, there was at least a thread of hopelessness already growing in the others. I could see it written all over their faces. You, though? You’re just angry.” His gaze narrows. “Is it because you’re a police officer, do you think? You’re used to the prospect of death and mayhem, so it takes something special to break you down?” 

He seems to be genuinely waiting for an answer. “I don’t know,” he replies, teeth gritted. 

“That’s a shame,” Lawrence says, and seems to really mean it. “I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts on the matter, Sergeant. Nurses and lawyers and classics academics, well, they might think that they know about the dark side of humanity but none of them did. Maybe a policeman is the one. After all, who else spends so much time dredging through the shit of humanity and still professes to live in the light?” 

Lawrence’s boot smashes down on Morse’s bare right foot, crushes his toes into the cold concrete floor and _twists_. Morse feels bones crack and pop and break, feels toenails tear against the stone, feels his foot mangled and pulped. He screams, of course, but then Lawrence’s hand is around his throat, pressing hard against his windpipe, and the screams dwindle to a hiccup, a cough, a wheeze. “Just so you know,” he says, bloody _conversational_ , “you can scream as much as you like. No one’s going to hear you, no one’s going to come running. However, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer it if you’d keep the yelping to a minimum. I’m after a conversation with you, not a competition as to who can make the louder noise.”

Morse is rapidly coming to the realisation that this man is, quite simply, insane, and it’s that more than anything else that sends fear chilling through his gut. He keeps the fear out of his face, though, keeps it from his eyes because those bodies are always in the back of his mind—Pullman, McKinley, Wheeler, Morse—and he has no desire to be among them. Lawrence’s grip on his throat loosens, just a little, and he coughs, clears his raw throat as best he can. “What would you like to talk about?” he asks, and transfers as much of his weight as he can to his left foot. 

Lawrence smiles and releases him. “I’d like to talk about you, Sergeant Morse,” he says, treading calmly back over to the table against the wall. One of his footprints is a little bloody, but Morse forces himself not to look down. “What do you think about the _Bacchae_?” 

“It’s one of Euripides’ later plays,” Morse answers, trying not to think about the ache in his stomach and the agony in his foot. “Written at the Macedonian court, in the north of Greece. The text is very corrupt, full of lacunae and conjectures, particularly in the last few scenes.” 

“Yes, yes,” Lawrence says dismissively, and when he turns back to face Morse there’s a stiletto dagger held loosely in his hand, long, thin blade gleaming under the artificial lights. “That’s what you know about the play. What do you _think_ about it?” 

Morse forces himself to breathe levelly. “I think it’s an examination of cruelty and madness,” he says. “I think that the pity that we feel for Pentheus subverts the awe that we feel for Dionysus, that we _should_ feel for Dionysus, as he is a god.” He stops. His mouth is dry and his head is swimming because Lawrence is standing in front of him again and the tip of that knife is hovering just a hairsbreadth away from the skin below his ribcage.

Lawrence glances up from the point of the knife. “Oh, please keep talking,” he says. “I’m interested in your take. But make sure you stand still: I’m a classicist, not a medic, so if you move too much it’s entirely possible I’ll nick an internal organ and then this will all be over a lot faster than either of us wants it to be.” He looks back down again, forehead furrowed. “Do you think it matters that Dionysus is a god?” he asks, and the point of the knife pierces Morse’s skin. “As a modern man watching the play, should we think of him as some ancient, vengeful deity, or should we hold him to our own standards?” 

The knife is an inch into Morse’s stomach. “That depends,” he says, breaths short and fast through his nose, eyes screwed shut. He wants to scream but he knows that it won’t help, won’t help, won’t help. He has to keep Lawrence on his side. He can’t give up. “Do we prioritise the ancient circumstances – _ah!_ – of the play, or do we—” He breaks off because the pain is immense and he needs to breathe. “Or do we,” he tries again, not bothering to try to stop his voice shaking, “do we care more about how it affects us?” 

Lawrence hums his agreement, then takes a step back and folds his arms. “Good question,” he says. “Should we care more about the play as it was or the play as it _is_? What’s your answer, Sergeant?” 

The knife is still in Morse’s chest, sitting just below the rise of his ribs, sunk three inches into his flesh. A red rivulet of blood trickles down his stomach, collecting on one hip, dripping down his leg. “We can never know the play as it was,” Morse answers, breaths shallow and hiccupping. There’s a glaze of pain in his head, in his eyes. “All there is is the play as it is.”

“So do you think that we can never know what an Athenian audience would have made of Dionysus’ actions?” Lawrence asks, then laughs, corrects: “Or a Macedonian one, for that matter. And does the difference between the two matter?” 

Morse is being quizzed like an undergraduate in a tutorial with an Italian dagger in his chest. “What do you think?” he gasps, in an attempt to divert Lawrence’s attention. 

Lawrence shakes his head. “No, no,” he says. “We’re talking about you, remember? What do you think?” 

Morse can’t. He just can’t. “Please,” he says, the words slipping from his lips before he even really thinks of them. “Please, stop.” 

There’s a coyness to Lawrence’s expression. “Oh, and you were doing so well,” he says, shaking his head, but he doesn’t move. He just _stands_ there, staring. “I’m going to need you to elaborate,” he says. “Stop what, exactly?” 

The blood is warm against Morse’s skin. “Take it out,” he chokes. “Please, take it out.” 

Lawrence steps forward, takes hold of the stiletto’s hilt and draws it out in one smooth motion. The release is so abrupt that vomit floods the back of Morse’s throat. His knees sag, his head falls back, and there’s still pain, of course, still so much pain and a new flood of hot blood down his stomach, his thigh, pattering on the ground at his feet, but there’s _release_. All Morse can do is breathe, and he slowly comes back to himself, back to the sound of Lawrence’s voice. He’s standing at the table, wiping off the blade, saying, “I really am impressed. Pandora didn’t even try, and Alistair wasn’t much better, to be honest. He just kept yelling at me, threatening me with legal action – and, I mean, I wouldn’t have minded so much if he was actually offering me something interesting about the legal principles involved! But no, it was just threats and shouting. So dull.” 

“You’re insane,” Morse says, flat and hoarse. 

“That is entirely possible,” Lawrence asks, and puts the dagger down. His hand hovers over the array of knives before selecting another, bigger, heavier. “Self-diagnosis puts me as a sociopath, but I’m not sure how much I trust all this psychoanalysis. Seems to be just trying to put names to problems that don’t really need fixing.” 

“You don’t think you need fixing?” 

Lawrence comes back towards him, one eyebrow cocked. “Shouldn’t you be trying to get on my good side?” he asks, almost _teasing_. “I mean, maybe I’ll go easy on you if you’re nice to me.” 

There’s something burning in Morse’s gut, something tight and angry that isn’t the pain, no, it isn’t the pain at all. “You’re going to do whatever you want to me, no matter what I do or say,” he answers, breath still fast, chest still tight. “You have no intention of going easy on me, and there’s no way for me to stop you.” 

“I’m glad you’ve realised it.” 

“But they will come for me,” Morse says. “My colleagues. City Police. They will find you.” 

Lawrence’s lip curls. “I seriously doubt that.” 

Morse doesn’t answer. 

“You’re not going to talk to me about Greek drama anymore, are you?” Lawrence asks, and he almost sounds sad about it. “That’s a pity. You had some interesting ideas. I think we could learn from each other.” He pauses, laughs. “Well, I could learn from you. You’re not going to be around long enough to put anything you might learn to good use.” He pauses again, studying Morse with those bright, intelligent eyes. The tip of the knife in his hand strays close to Morse’s thigh. “You know this is only the beginning, yes?” he says. “There’s a lot more hurt coming before I kill you.” 

Morse grits his teeth, and says nothing. 

 

Lawrence gets bored, eventually. Or maybe hungry, or thirsty, or just tired. He tells Morse, says about needing to go upstairs and sort something out, but Morse doesn’t have it in him to listen any more. He hangs there, slumped, wrists on fire but so much less than the rest of his body, and listens to Lawrence’s footsteps recede behind the locked door.

Every breath is like fire. 

Morse has lost count of the number of wounds that are slashed across his skin. Knives and pliers and whips and scalpels, they’ve all left their marks, and now when he looks down at himself he’s a patchwork of blood and broken flesh. It’s difficult to think. It’s difficult to think. He’s vaguely aware that there’s a thought he needs to be clinging to, something about hope, something about anger, but it all seems a bit irrelevant.

There’s a dotted puddle of blood around his feet. He stares at it absently, because he knows it’s his but he’s really not sure where it all came from.

Morse drifts off, after a little while, and sleeps, fitful and patchy. 

 

“Sergeant.” 

There’s a hand shaking Morse awake, tapping at his cheek. He frowns, comes back to himself slower than he expects, and for a long moment he can’t remember where he is. 

“Hey, Sergeant, come on. I’m not done with you yet.” 

Morse remembers. 

Lawrence has shaved. There’s a nick just beneath his chin, and for a long moment that’s all Morse can focus on, that shaving nick. “There you are,” Lawrence says, smiling. “Nice nap?” 

Pain crawls over Morse’s skin like insects, insects over a summer picnic. 

“I hope it was,” Lawrence says. He’s studying Morse, forehead furrowed, then he reaches out, settles his hand around Morse’s throat in a gesture that’s half dominance, half intimacy. “I’ve got a question for you. It occurred to me while I was eating upstairs. I don’t know your name.”

“Morse.” 

“No, I know _that_ ,” Lawrence dismisses. “And I know that you’re a Detective Sergeant with Oxford City Police. What I _don’t_ know is your first name. I’m Ellis Lawrence. Who are you?” 

“Morse.” 

Lawrence’s expression twists, just a little, in an expression that Morse has become sickeningly familiar with. “Am I going to have to torture it out of you?” he asks. “Because we both know that I’m very capable of that.” 

Morse grits his teeth. His head is clearer, now, clearer for sleep and a pause from pain. “Endeavour,” he says, because there’s no point in withholding this, not when he can make a connection with him, not when he can try to slow this down. “My name is Endeavour.” 

“Endeavour,” Lawrence repeats, slower. “Do you mind if I call you that?” 

“I prefer Morse.” 

Lawrence shrugs. “I think I’m going to go for Endeavour,” he says. “I like it, It’s – bold. It says something about you.” He pauses, studies Morse a moment longer, then goes back to his table. Morse feels his stomach twist already, feels his heart start racing, but then Lawrence comes back to him and there’s a clean cloth and a bottle of iodine in his hand. “Hold still, Endeavour,” he says. “I need to clean up your wounds.” He tips the bottle onto the cloth, soaks it through. “This is going to sting, but by the look of that scar on your side I figure you already know that.” 

Morse doesn’t understand. “Why are you doing this?” he says, then hisses, bites his tongue when Lawrence presses the iodine-soaked cloth to the stiletto wound in his chest. “If you’re going to kill me, isn’t infection just as good a way to do it?”

Lawrence is silent for a moment, cleaning, cleaning. The dark bronze of the iodine drips to join the rust of Morse’s blood. “I quite like talking to you,” he says eventually, dabbing a long weal down Morse’s shoulderblade. “I’m thinking of maybe keeping you around a bit longer than the others. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to let you go. But I think I’d like you to last a bit longer.” 

Morse can translate that. _I like you._ His heart thuds again, faster, faster. 

Lawrence cleans on. The iodine burns so much it brings tears to Morse’s eyes, but he bites them back, breathes through his nose. He’s a little more rested and there isn’t a knife in his body so he needs to use this time to think. There’s no getting out of the cuffs, he knows that, and his wrists are already torn up enough by previous attempts. He has to try to get Lawrence to unchain him, but he doesn’t know how to do that. 

“Out of interest,” Lawrence says, crouching down to clean a gash in the pit of Morse’s knee, “which of these is worst?” 

“Excuse me?”

“Which of the wounds hurts the most,” Lawrence clarifies. “When I gave you them, I mean. Which was the worst?” 

“Why?” Morse asks. “So that you can do it again?” 

Lawrence snorts. “I don’t repeat myself,” he says. “No, I’m thinking for the next one.” 

Morse’s heart thuds louder. Pullman, McKinley, Wheeler, Morse, _next_. “If it’s for your next victim,” he says slowly, “then I don’t think my opinion would help very much. A woman will experience pain differently to a man, and an older man will experience it differently to a younger man. Everyone takes these things differently.” 

Lawrence hums. “That is true,” he says. “Okay, so, just for personal interest. What was the worst?” 

Morse could lie, could bluster some more, but Lawrence likes him and he wants to keep that. Honesty. He has to be honest. “My foot,” he says, voice quieter, shaking. “When you – crushed my foot.” 

“Really?” Lawrence asks, coming round to face Morse once more. “That is not what I would have guessed. Why?” 

“It’s not just the pain itself,” Morse says, forcing his voice to steady because he can be honest, yes, but he’s not going to break. Not when that’s exactly what Lawrence wants. “I might not walk again. It might be that bad. It might not be fixable. That’s what’s worst.” 

Lawrence’s expression is thoughtful. “You really think you’re getting out of this, don’t you?” he says. “You really, really do. You’ve seen where you are, what I’ve done to you, what I’m _going_ to do to you – and you still think you’re going to survive to worry about the state of your foot.” He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know if that’s admirable or just idiotic.” He stares at him a moment longer. “But I take your point,” he says eventually. “The fear for future disability is almost as strong as the fear of physical pain itself. Interesting.” 

Lawrence cleans out the last of the wounds that he carved into Morse’s body, then returns the iodine and the cloth to the table and flashes Morse a smile. “One second,” he says. “Just got to go and wash my hands.” 

Morse listens to the fade of his footsteps up the stairs, then takes a breath and think. He has to keep him engaged. Has to keep him _interested_ , because that’s what ‘I’d like to make you last a bit longer’ really means. He can’t exactly talk to many people about his hobby, so if Morse wants to stay alive then he has to keep him talking. He has to – connect with him.

There’s a sick taste at the back of Morse’s throat, but that could be the blood or the sweat or the bile. 

When Lawrence comes back, hands fresh and clean, Morse steadies himself as much as he can and says, “Can I ask you a question?” 

If Lawrence is surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Go ahead,” he says. 

“I checked your alibis,” Morse says. “At the time of Alistair McKinley’s death, you were in London at a board meeting. Several of your colleagues attested to that. I spoke to them all. But in actual fact, you were here. In this – basement, taking his life. How?” 

Lawrence’s lips curl in a smile that’s almost condescending. “I’m an extremely rich man,” he says flatly. “I assume you know that from whatever checks you ran on me, but I think it’s unlikely that you know the true extent of my wealth. My family is an old one, a very old one. We have land and industry and influence in the highest circles of government. What that means, in the end, it that it is ultimately very easy for me to bribe fellow board members. Or blackmail them, whichever works.” That smile grows wider. “Most have learned by now that it’s easier and more pleasant for everyone if they just accept the bribe in the first place.” 

“And your alibi for Miss Pullman’s death?” Morse asks. “Do you bribe your housekeeper as well?” 

Lawrence’s smile turns cold. “Maggie has been with my family a long time,” he says, suddenly so damn _proper_. “I wouldn’t treat her like that. But she’s getting old, now, and her memory isn’t what it used to be.” He pauses, shrugs. His expression slips back to sun. “I thought that if the alibi for the second murder was strong enough, then you’d forgive some vagueness in the first. I mean, they are all _clearly_ done by the same person. The Greek is enough evidence of that.” He pauses, gaze keen. “I answered your question,” he says, one eyebrow cocked. “Only seems fair that you answer mine now.” 

“Seems fair,” Morse answers. 

“The scar on your side,” Lawrence says promptly. “Tell me how you got it.” 

That scar is almost hidden under blood and iodine, now. “I was stabbed while pursuing a suspect,” Morse answers shortly. “In the Bodleian.” 

Lawrence’s eyebrows jump. “In the _Bodleian_?” he asks, then laughs. “The most exciting thing that ever happened to me in the Bodleian was finding a book on Roman comedy in the Lower Reading Room that was graffitied with the word ‘shit’. No one ever tried to stab me.” 

Morse thinks about shrugging, but his body is battered enough that he knows it would be a mistake. “We caught him in the end,” he says, and it’s not intended to be a threat but there it is, anyway. 

“I’m sure you did,” Lawrence answers, and doesn’t seem to be intimidated at all. 

“Is it my turn to ask a question now?” Morse proposes. 

Lawrence cocks an eyebrow. “Sure,” he says slowly, warmly. “What do you want to know?” 

“Why am I naked?” Morse asks. “You strip your victim’s clothes, presumably torture them and then redress them once they’re dead. Why? Why not just torture them while they’re wearing the clothes, or dispose of the bodies still naked? Why do you go that extra step?” 

“That’s a good question,” Lawrence answers, lips twisted in a smile that’s almost sly. “There’s a number of reasons, I suppose. If I’m trying to inscribe detailed Greek into someone’s stomach, it helps to have a blank canvas. No tatters of blouse or jacket hanging around, getting in the wounds, tanging up the scalpel. And it feels more proper, you know? Dumping naked bodies is so… _crass_.” 

“Crass,” Morse repeats, more in astonishment that it’s the public nudity that’s the issue rather than the torture and murder. 

Lawrence, however, seems to take it as agreement, nodding enthusiastically. “Exactly,” he says. “These people gave their lives for me. It seems only fitting that I treat them with respect after the fact.” He pauses, and that smile grows wider. “And then, of course, there’s the power dynamic while they’re still alive. While _you’re_ still alive.” He gestures between them. “I’m fully clothes, you’re naked. That makes you vulnerable, throws you off-guard.”

Morse doesn’t know how to answer that, not when he’s standing there like this, hands chained above his head, bloody and dirty and dripping with orange-bronze iodine. 

Lawrence is watching him. “My turn,” he says, quiet, slow. “Tell me about City Police.” 

Morse licks his lips. “What do you want to know?” 

“I want to know their names,” Lawrence answers, smooth and quiet and slick like a snake. “I want to know their families, their homes, their lives.” 

Morse stiffens. “No,” he says, short and sharp.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to _kill_ them,” Lawrence says, shaking his head. “I don’t want to repeat professions. Seems lazy. One policeman is enough. No, I just want to know where to go and who to watch to see how much your death hurts them.” 

There’s a chill settling in Morse’s stomach, prickling his skin. “You watched the families,” he says slowly. “Roy Batten, Mrs McKinley.” 

“And Professor Queen, too,” Lawrence confirms. “A very statuesque woman. Much more restrained than Roy or Mrs McKinley.” 

“That’s how you picked me,” Morse says, sickness twisting up among the chill. “You saw me interviewing them. Not Roy Batten, but the others. Mrs McKinley, Professor Queen. I spoke to them. I spoke to Professor Queen about – about _you_.” 

“That was what I surmised,” Lawrence says, quiet and dangerous. “I’ve never met her, of course, but Kathryn was always fairly chatty so I can assume that she knows about me. And you’re a good copper, so you would have found that out.” His smile is dangerous, bright and sharp. “I knew that you’d come out to visit me at some point,” he says. “It was just exceptionally lucky for me that for some bizarre reason best known to yourself you chose to come visit me in the middle of a blizzard. Made it really very easy to make it look like your car just skidded off the road. Drip some blood through the snow, and your police colleagues will think that you hit your head, got confused and wandered off to die in the snow somewhere.” 

“And then they’ll find my body in Lonsdale.” 

“Yes, that will slightly spoil the illusion,” Lawrence allows. “But by that point, it’ll be too late for you. But not too late for _them_. So, Endeavour. Tell me their names. Tell me everything about them.” 

Morse looks up, looks him in the eye, smiles a flat, grim smile and says, “No.” 

Lawrence almost looks regretful. “Have it your way,” he says. He goes to the table, footsteps slow and careful on the concrete floor, and picks up a kitchen knife, a paring knife, blade short and stubby and so very sharp. He comes back to Morse, knife hefted in his hand. “Sure?” 

Morse thinks about Thursday, about Strange, about Bright and DeBryn and Trewlove, and doesn’t answer. 

The knife sinks to its hilt into Morse’s shoulder, and blood runs fresh and bright down his chest. 

 

The hours fade into one another, a haze of pain and exhaustion and the keen sting of cleansing iodine. Sometimes Lawrence asks him questions, sometimes Morse answers, but more often it’s just cut and punch and crush and, always, scream. Morse’s throat is hoarse from shouting, his lips cracked from dehydration, his stomach twisted from hunger – and then there’s all the injuries, of course, but they’re just sort of par for the course by now. 

He catches rest in fitful moments of peace, dreamless snapshots of blackness where the pain fades into memory. 

Bloodloss starts to blur his mind before long, leaving him blinking through the haze and reacting to the blows and the hurt a fraction of a second later than he should. Lawrence gives him water, sometimes, and it spills out of his mouth, drips down his chest to join the blood and the iodine. He vaguely knows that he’s slipping further and further away from human with every minute that passes, slipping into listlessness. It gets harder and harder to keep his eyes open. Harder and harder to think. 

 

“Do you want to know what I’m going to write on you?” Lawrence asks. 

Morse can’t bring himself to raise his head, can’t bring himself to answer.

“I was going to go for something from the end of the play,” Lawrence says, scalpel in hand. “Maybe a line from Agave? I find there’s something really very striking about the scene when she comes bursting in, her son’s head in her hand, brandishing it like it’s her trophy. But I’ve changed my mind now. I think I’m going to go for something… different. The beginning of the play.” 

“ _Heko Dios pais_ ,” Morse mutters, “ _tende Thebaion chthona Dionusos._ ” 

“I, the son of Zeus, have come to this land of the Thebans,” Lawrence translates. “I, Dionysus.” 

“I’m flattered.” Morse’s lips are dry and cracked. 

“Glad you appreciate it,” Lawrence says. He presses his hand to Morse’s chest, stretching the skin so it’s flat and straight. “Now hold still, okay? 

Morse vaguely knows that this is not a good sign, but to be honest? He hurts and he’s tired and all he wants to do is sleep, rest, shut down and shut off from the world. He’s tried to keep himself alert, tried to keep himself active, to fight, to struggle, but he can’t free himself and no one’s coming and there’s no way out of this. Bloodloss, hopeless. 

The scalpel hurts, but no more than everything else that’s been done to him. 

Morse hangs, head on his chest, and can barely summon up a wince as fluid Greek letters are sliced into his skin.

Lawrence stops, pauses halfway through _pais_. “What was that?”

Morse is vaguely aware that the question is addressed to him. 

“Hey,” Lawrence says, and smacks him in the shoulder. That sparks enough pain to jerk Morse back to alertness, and he chokes out an aborted cry. “Did you do that?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Morse manages to husk, barely a breath above a whisper. 

“Something thudded,” Lawrence says, straightening up. “It sounded like—” He cuts off. “I don’t know what it sounded like.” 

But now Morse hears it, too. Soft thuds from – above them. 

_Footsteps._

Morse is too far gone to hope. He hangs there, tired, tired, tired. 

“Shit,” Lawrence says, soft and quiet, but oddly he doesn’t sound particularly worried. “Maybe your colleagues aren’t as idiotic as I thought they were.” He stands there, glancing between Morse and the door, forehead furrowed – but the whole is studied, affected. It’s like he’s contemplating a particularly tricky piece of translation, not the discovery of his crimes. “Question is,” he muses to Morse as the footsteps turn to shouts, shouts of _discovery_ , and then there’s footsteps thudding down the stairs, “what do I do with you?” 

Next thing Morse really notices, there’s a scalpel to his neck and a lot of people he recognises shouting at him. Except no, of course, they’re not shouting at _him_ , they’re shouting at Lawrence and he just happens to be in the way, naked and bloody and dazed. He can’t think. He just – can’t. 

“Let him go,” a voice says, short and angry. Morse knows that voice from late-night stakeouts and early-morning pickups, from the station and his flat and a hundred other places in between. He can’t place it. “Put down the knife, step away from him, and put your hands in the air.” 

Lawrence says something, his tone still cool, still calm. Morse can’t make himself focus on the words, because he’s staring at the ground, staring at the blood puddle around his feet, at the dried flecks of blood further out. He’s looking at Lawrence’s shoes, too, at the spots of his blood on the light-coloured leather, at the brogued details and the neatly tied shoelaces. Everything’s so – neat. 

Morse is feeling very lightheaded. His eyes start to drift shut. 

There’s more words, more conversation, more _shouting_ , and then all of a sudden there’s a crack, loud as thunder, and a hot, burning sensation all along the right side of his throat. Warm slips down his chest, his stomach, and the fuzziness in his head gets all the worst. The weight at his back falls away, leaves him hanging in the emptiness, and then there are hands—different hands—holding him up, tugging at the chains around his wrists. People are saying things to him and there’s something soft pressing to his neck, to the burning pain, but he can’t hear anything. His head is blocked off. His mind is empty. 

Morse closes his eyes, and lets go. 

 

Morse wakes slowly, swimming up through a haze of darkness and idleness towards some far-off pinprick of light. His breathing is slow and thoughtful. He can feel it echoing through his chest, filling his lungs. 

“Morse?” 

That voice is familiar. Morse frowns, struggles to open his eyes. 

“Hey, matey, you’re okay. Don’t strain yourself. You’re okay now, you’re safe.” 

The light is bright and cool, clinical even. There’s a soft hum of activity in the background, voices and movement and machinery. It’s a familiar ambience – a hospital? Mores blinks, squints, and the light slowly resolves itself into Strange’s face. There’s a relief in that face that’s almost joyous. “Strange?” Morse tries to say, although it comes out as more of a croak. His throat hurts. 

“Don’t talk,” Strange says. “The doctors said you shouldn’t talk. Just – hold on a second, alright? I’m going to go get one of them. I’ll be right back.” 

Strange disappears, and Morse is left staring at the ceiling. 

The next little while passes in a haze of doctors and drugs and people saying things that Morse only vaguely takes on board. He’s mostly just happy to lie there, enjoying the haze of what he imagines is morphine and studying the half-healed and bandaged wounds on his arms. Everything is hidden beneath the blanket, but when one of the doctors lifts it to press a stethoscope to his chest, Morse sees more, sees more than he wants to. 

He closes his eyes and looks away. 

“Morse?” 

That’s the voice, the voice from before. The voice that said let him go, the memory of stakeouts and car drives and investigations without count. 

Morse opens his eyes again. The light is dimmer, now, suggesting it’s evening or perhaps even nighttime, and Thursday is standing at his bedside, hat still on his head, expression caught somewhere between fear and relief. “Sir?” he asks, and then immediately regrets that decision.

“Don’t talk too much, Morse,” Thursday says, pulling up a chair and taking a seat. He takes his hat off, the motion automatic. “You’re still pretty banged up, and the doctors don’t want you exerting yourself.” 

Morse’s head is a little clearer, which unfortunately means that the pain is clearer, too. He lies still for a moment, licks dry lips. “Lawrence?” he eventually manages. 

“Dead,” Thursday says, not sounding regretful in the slightest. “He was shot, but his knife caught your neck as he fell. Missed anything major, fortunately, but you gave us quite a scare.” He leans forward, forehead furrowed. “You were very stupid, Morse, going after him by yourself like that. _Stupid._ You could have died, you know that? Yes, you left that note on your desk, but you _could have died_. You nearly did die. If we’d been five minutes later, ten, then you would have had your throat laid open just like the rest of them.” 

Morse’s heart beats steady in his chest. Pandora Pullman, Alistair McKinley, Kathryn Wheeler, Endeavour Morse. “How did you find me?” he says, keeping his voice to a whisper because that hurts less. 

Thursday’s expression twists into something indefinable. He settles back in his chair, folds his arms. “Once we realised you were gone, we went out to Marsden House again,” he says shortly. “Found your car, figured out what had happened. Questioned the servants at the House, but they were no help. Went back to the land registry, searched all of Lawrence’s properties anywhere near Oxford. Nothing there, so we expanded the search. Found a small, abandoned factory out Botley-way that belongs to one of the companies Lawrence is on the board of. Searched it, found the basement, found you strung up like… meat at a slaughterhouse.” Something spasms across Thursday’s face. “You looked half dead, Morse,” he says. 

“How long?” 

“He had you for a little over three days.” 

Morse shakes his head, then hisses at the pain it causes. He can feel the bandage wrapped around his throat, so snug it verges on pain. “Hospital.” 

“How long have you been in the hospital?” Thursday clarifies. “We found you Thursday morning. It’s Saturday evening, now. You woke up earlier today, but I – wasn’t here. I was at the station, following up.” 

Morse pauses, thinks, then frowns up at Thursday. “It’s Christmas Eve.” 

“That’s right.” 

“Why are you here?” Morse husks. “It’s Christmas. You should be—” He cuts off, slips back into the pillow. A wave of nausea floods through him and he closes his eyes, focuses on breathing.

He comes back to the feeling of Thursday’s hand on his shoulder. The touch is gentle, careful, but it’s firm and solid and grounding. “I’m where I need to be,” Thursday says, just as firm as his touch. “And I won’t have any more questions about it.” 

Morse comes back to himself, slowly, slowly. He just breathes for a long moment, then he looks over at Thursday, face half-shadowed by the dim light on the ward. “Thank you, sir,” he says. “Thank you.” 

Thursday watches him for a little while, unspeaking. “There are people who care about you here,” he says eventually. “You don’t need to go throwing yourself into harm’s way like that. You shouldn’t. It’s reckless and idiotic and I expect more from you.” 

“I’m sorry,” Morse says, quiet in the stillness of the ward. 

Thursday sighs. “I’m sorry, too,” he says, then squeezes Morse’s unstabbed shoulder ever so gently and lets go. 

 

Thursday leaves late in the evening, maybe ten or so, but Morse is already drifting back into slumber by then so he doesn’t notice so much. He doesn’t remember his dreams, although he’s fairly sure that they weren’t good. The drugs seem to numb most of the things going on inside his head, which he can’t say he’s entirely sad for. 

There’s a couple of books that he recognises from his flat sitting on his bedside table, so when he wakes on Christmas morning, he reads a few chapters of Tolstoy’s _Anna Karenina_ and watches as the other patients on his ward are greeted by their families, presents pressed into their hands, cheeks bright with smiles. The nurses bring round the hospital’s attempt at Christmas lunch—dry turkey, a few roast potatoes, sprouts and cabbage and carrots—and he eats it slowly, the hand without the broken fingers holding the fork and the hand without the ripped-out fingernails holding the book open on the blanket next to him.

He half hopes to see Monica, but he knows that she visits family in London around Christmas. 

Christmas passes, and he slowly works his way through Anna’s tragic story. 

Morse dozes off a little after three, full of turkey, _Anna Karenina_ propped open on his stomach. The drugs have lessened enough that the pain is tiring, and his sleep is uneasy, uncomfortable. He dreams about the riverside, banks loaded heavy with snow, about following a trail of dotted blood through that white blanket. He’s looking for something, he knows, for someone, but he can’t find them, and the snow builds higher around him as he searches, coming up to his knees, his thighs, his waist. He’s floundering in the cold and then he realises, wait, the blood that’s in the snow? The blood that’s in the snow is his, and it’s thick and flowing and he can’t make it stop. 

He wakes with a start, breath short in his lungs, and for a moment his mind is fogged with confusion. There are – voices, all around him, whispering and talking, and it’s not the background hum of a hospital ward, no, it’s closer than that. He opens his eyes, squints up. 

“Oh, Morse, I’m sorry if we woke you!” The voice is apologetic, affectionate. 

Morse feels a hand stroking hair back off his sweaty forehead, but it takes him a moment to put gesture and voice together with a name. “Mrs Thursday?” he asks, voice hoarse and caught in his throat. 

Mrs Thursday smiles, worried creases deepening around her eyes. “My name is Win, Morse,” she says, more than an echo of her husband’s sternness in her voice. 

“Leave off him, Mum. He’s been through enough.” 

Miss Thursday. Joan. 

Morse screws up his eyes, takes a breath. “I don’t understand.” 

“Well, Fred said that you’d agreed to come round to ours for Christmas dinner,” Mrs Thursday says, carefully patting the same shoulder that her husband squeezed before. “You obviously couldn’t make it, after everything that happened, so we wanted to bring a spot of Christmas to you.” 

Morse opens his eyes again, squints until he can make her out. “You didn’t have to,” he says. “I’m fine.” 

“It’s no bother,” Joan says. He realises now that they’re sitting on either side of him, perched in the uncomfortable plastic chairs that are all the hospital offers. “Mum’s even smuggled in some turkey sandwiches for you.” 

“And we might not be very good company,” Thursday himself says from the foot of the bed, “but I daresay we’re better company than _this_.” He brandishes _Anna Karenina_ with a dubious expression on his face – although Morse notices that there’s a spare sheet of paper tucked between the pages roughly where he stopped reading. “I’m almost surprised that you’re reading it in English.” 

Morse takes it for the gentle rib it is. 

“Fred,” Mrs Thursday says reprovingly, then turns back to Morse with a winning smile. “You’re looking better, though! A lot more colour in your cheeks than the last time we came by.” 

Morse frowns. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember seeing you.” 

“It was when you were still asleep,” Joan explains. “Dad told us – something about what happened, and Mum couldn’t stand the thought of you lying here all by yourself in the hospital.” Her smile is a little tense, a little worried. Morse is lucid enough to appreciate the sentiment but hate that fact that he’s caused it. “We came by, sat next to you for a little while. You didn’t wake up and eventually the nurses sent us home.” 

Morse doesn’t quite know what to say. “Thank you,” he manages eventually, and the returning beam he gets from Mrs Thursday is enough to set something warm glowing in his heart. 

Thursday is still standing at the foot of the bed, hands resting on the metal footrest. He’s wearing a jumper and no hat, cheeks pinked from the cold outside, and he watches Morse while Mrs Thursday and Joan fuss over him, offering him turkey sandwiches, quizzing him on the nurses, insisting that he lie down a little more because he looks uncomfortable. He doesn’t look comfortable, doesn’t look happy, because his sergeant is laid out in a hospital bed, face thinner than usual, wrapped in bandages and poked full of needles so how could he be happy? – but by the time that Joan fetches him a chair, too, and forces him to sit in it, his shoulders are looser, just a little. 

The Thursdays stay with Morse until the duty nurse comes round with an apologetic air of Christmas cheer and tells them that she’s sorry, but their patient has to rest. Mrs Thursday promises him more sandwiches tomorrow and Joan presses a light kiss to his forehead, a kiss that maybe lingers a little longer than it should. Thursday stays for a moment longer after his family leaves the ward, squeezes Morse’s good shoulder one more time and says, “Get better, Morse. You’re missed.” 

Morse nods wordlessly and watches Thursday leave. 

He sleeps, in the end, _Anna Karenina_ sitting closed in his lap, and doesn’t dream.


End file.
